Vote On Nov. 7 Could Change Direction Of Things

Sometimes the obvious must be stated in the simplest of terms, such as "Just the facts, Ma'am, and nothing but the facts."

The United States, the acknowledged "leader of the free world," is holding an election on Nov. 7. The outcome will change your life, my life, and the lives and deaths of millions of innocent people around the world. Our individual vote or failure to vote will have immense consequences here in Arizona and worldwide.

Did you think that your pro-life vote in 2004 saved unborn babies? Look at the history of America's actions in the past two years. Your vote sent your neighbors to Iraq and Afghanistan and other places, where since the November 2004 election more than 1,500 of them were killed as surely as if you planted the roadside bombs. The people you elected have also bombed hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children, destroying lives, homes, families and communities just like yours.

If you voted to be "strong on terror," think of the lives you yourself have terrorized over the past two years, including innocent civilians in bombed and war-torn countries and all the innocent detainees who've been tortured as if a sadist from the Middle Ages were ruling the U.S. instead of someone who pledged on the Bible to uphold the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law. Worldwide terrorist attacks have increased, not decreased because of our actions. (http://www.brookings. edu/fp/saban/iraq/index20060831.pdf).

Because of your vote you've been complicit in the rapes and murders committed by our soldiers whose psyches have morphed into sub-human robots because of the terrors of street combat and sights you wouldn't wish on a mature 50-year-old National Guard member, much less on an 18- or 19-year-old who should be a college freshman. (For complete fatality statistics see the Iraq Index at http:// www.brookings.edu/fp/saban/iraq/index20060831.pdf).

The 19,000 of our soldiers cited as wounded do not include the ones who, like the Vietnam veterans of thirty or forty years ago, will live the rest of their lives homeless and drugged to avoid the memories they can't otherwise escape. We'll never know how many lives ended in Iraq for all intents and purposes although they now walk our streets.

As you drop your child off at school or walk into church on Sunday, take a moment to consider the consequences of your vote or of your failure to vote.

Don't let it happen again this Nov. 7.

Judy Whitehouse, Payson

Editor's note: This letter was shortened to fit within the Roundup's 400-word limit for Letters to the Editor.